Apprentices

Chuka Umunna: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills how many apprentices aged (a) 16 to 18, (b) 19 to 24 and (c) 25 years or over are employed at each of his Department's Executive agencies, non-departmental public bodies and associated bodies and agencies.

Matthew Hancock: I have asked chief executives of the Executive agencies to respond directly to the hon. Member.
	Until 2013, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills did not keep a record of the age of internal apprentices. The table shows the age of both externally recruited apprentices since 2010 and ages of those apprentices embarking on the Departments’ internal apprenticeship programme in 2013. The 2013 figure refers to the ages of those on the Departments’ internal programme. There are no externally recruited apprentices in the 25 years or over category.
	
		
			  2010 2011 2012 2013 
			 16 to 18 0 0 0 1 
			 19 to 24 2 1 2 11 
			 25 years or over 0 0 0 16 
		
	
	The Department for Business Innovation and Skills currently has 53 apprentices. We have had 4 successful completions this year.
	16 of these 53 apprentices are under the age of 21 with a further 6 apprentices under 21 expected to join the Department later in the year.
	Letter from John Alty, dated 7 April 2014
	I am responding in respect of the Intellectual Property Office to your Parliamentary Question tabled 3rd April 2014, to the Secretary of State for Business. Innovation and Skills in which you ask the Secretary of State for Business, innovation and Skills, how many apprentices aged (a) 16 to 18, (b) 19 to 24 and (c) 25 years or over are employed at each of his Department's executive agencies, non-departmental public bodies and associated bodies and agencies. (195212)
	The Intellectual Property Office is an executive agency of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS). It does not currently employ any apprentices, but is in the process of introducing a scheme to bring 8 in from September 2014.
	Letter from John Hirst, dated 7 April 2014
	I am replying on behalf of the Met Office to your Parliamentary Question tabled on 3 April 2014, DIN 195212 to the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills.
	There are no apprentices working at the Met Office. The Met Office primarily meets its needs for trainees through graduate recruitment campaigns. In addition, the Met Office runs an innovative IT Trainee Scheme, training individuals from A-Level standard upwards. It also offers paid summer placement opportunities to those who have just completed the first year of A' levels, current undergraduates or those who have completed their studies.
	I hope this helps.
	Letter from Richard Judge, dated 8 April 2014
	In response to PQ 2013/3483, I confirm that the Insolvency Service has twelve existing members of staff who are undertaking an apprenticeship. The age breakdown is provided in the table.
	
		
			 Age of apprentice Number of apprentices currently employed 
			 16-18 0 
			 19-24 1 
			 25 years or over 11 
			 Total number of apprentices 12 
		
	
	The Agency does not have any new hire apprentices in its employment at present.
	Letter from Ed Lester, dated 8 April 2014
	I write on behalf of Land Registry in response to your parliamentary question numbered 195212 tabled on 03 April 2014 which asked the following:
	To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, how many apprentices aged (a) 16 to 18, (b) 19 to 24 and (c) 25 years or over are employed at each of his Department's executive agencies, non-departmental public bodies and associated bodies and agencies.
	I can confirm that Land Registry does not currently employ any apprentices but that we are working on proposals to take on apprentices in future.
	I hope that you find this information helpful.
	Letter from Barbara Spicer, dated 7 April 2014
	Thank you for your question asking the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, how many apprentices aged (a) 16 to 18, (b) 19 to 24 and (c) 25 years or over are employed at each of his Department's executive agencies, non-departmental public bodies and associated bodies and agencies. (195212)
	Please be advised that the Skills Funding Agency has 28 apprentices in total aged (a) 16 to 18-2 (b) 19 to 24-24 (c) 25 years or over-2
	I hope this satisfactorily addresses your question. If you have any follow up queries, please let me know.
	Letter from Sarah Glasspool, dated 4 April 2014
	I am responding in respect of the National Measurement Office (NMO), an executive agency of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), to your Parliamentary Question tabled on 3 April 2014, asking the BIS Secretary of State how many apprentices aged (a) 16 to 18, (b) 19 to 24 and (c) 25 years or over are employed at each of his Department's executive agencies, non-departmental public bodies and associated bodies and agencies.
	The National Measurement Office (NMO) employs one apprentice who falls into age bracket (a).
	Letter from Neil Hartley, dated 4 April 2014
	I am replying on behalf of Companies House to your Parliamentary Question tabled 3 April 2014, UIN 195212 to the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills.
	Companies House does not employ any apprentices.
	Letter from Vanessa Lawrence, dated 4 April 2014
	As Director General and Chief Executive of Ordnance Survey, I have been asked to respond to your Parliamentary Question asking the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, how many apprentices aged (a) 16 to 18, (b) 19 to 24 and (c) 25 years or over are employed at each of his Department's executive agencies, non-departmental public bodies and associated bodies and agencies.
	(a) No apprentices aged 16 to 18 are employed by Ordnance Survey.
	(b) No apprentices aged 19 to 24 are employed by Ordnance Survey.
	(c) No apprentices aged 25 or over are employed by Ordnance Survey.
	Should you have any further questions, please let me know.
	I hope this information is helpful.
	Letter from David Parker
	Thank you for your question addressed to the Secretary of State for the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills asking how many apprentices aged (a) 16 to 18, (b) 19 to 24 and (c) 25 years or over are employed at each of his Department's executive agencies, non-departmental public bodies and associated bodies and agencies.
	The UK Space Agency is an Executive Agency of the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills and has no apprentices employed.

Government Departments: Secondment

Chuka Umunna: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills how many secondments from the private sector to his Department and its agencies the secondee's work-related (a) wholly, (b) partly or (c) incidentally to the privatisation of Royal Mail; from which firms those secondments were made; and on what dates they began and ended.

Michael Fallon: In the Shareholder Executive teams are put together to work on specific projects bringing together appropriate skills and experience; such teams regularly include secondee appointments. Three secondees from Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Lazard and KPMG spent varying degrees of time working at the Shareholder Executive on the Royal Mail IPO. The Freshfields secondee worked on various projects, and worked wholly on the Royal Mail privatisation for the second half of the secondment. The Lazard and KPMG secondees were engaged to work principally on Royal Mail. No secondee held a senior position in the team.
	The KPMG secondment started in June 2013 and is continuing. The Freshfields secondment started in December 2012 and ended in November 2013. The Lazard secondment ran from January 2013 to January 2014.

Royal Mail

Chuka Umunna: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills what safeguards were (a) sought and (b) put in place to ensure that priority investors would continue to invest over a longer period of time in respect of the privatisation of Royal Mail.

Michael Fallon: More than 500 would-be investors in Royal Mail were approached in the lead up to the sale including potential long term institutional investors.
	As is standard practice for any flotation, we did not seek to lock in any investors in as they would have paid less for a stock they could not trade.
	We understand that the majority of the shares, other than those owned by Government, the Royal Mail workforce and retail investors, are currently held by long term institutional investors.

Shipping: Training

Katy Clark: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills what assessment he has made of the potential effect of reform of apprenticeships resulting from the Richard Review on the cost of training new (a) ratings and (b) officer cadets in the maritime industry; and if he will make a statement.

Matthew Hancock: Different apprenticeship programmes operate in England and Scotland. Doug Richard’s Review focused on English apprenticeships and he made a number of recommendations to make the programme more rigorous and responsive to employers’ needs. The Government accepted the Richard Review principles and set out its apprenticeship reform programme in the October 2013 Implementation Plan.
	The reforms include employers developing new apprenticeship standards, requiring employers to co-invest, putting the Government funding for the external training and assessment of apprentices in the hands of their employers and setting maximum Government contribution levels. With direct access to funding, employers will be able to negotiate a price for the training with their provider, and this means it is not possible in advance of the reforms to say what the costs of training apprentices in specific occupations will be.
	The Maritime sector has a long tradition of apprenticeships which we wish to continue. English apprenticeships are currently available for Maritime occupations and employers in the sector are currently designing a new apprenticeship standard for ratings as part of our Phase 2 Trailblazer programme.
	The Government has recognised through Alternative Completion Conditions Regulations that, in some maritime occupations, apprentices may be trainees rather than employees. The apprenticeships funding reform technical consultation is open until 1 May 2014 and this includes a question about how, or to what extent, the new funding principles and mechanism can be applied to non-employed apprentices.

Secularism and Humanism

Kerry McCarthy: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what meetings (a) he and (b) Ministers in his Department have had with (i) secularist and (b) humanist organisations since May 2010.

Stephen Williams: Ministers have regular meetings with a range of different partners and organisations. Details of Ministers' meetings with external organisations are published on the Department's website.

Armoured Fighting Vehicles

Alison Seabeck: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what estimate he has made of the number of armoured fighting vehicles which will be (a) returned to the UK, (d) destroyed or (c) sold by the time of the main withdrawal from Afghanistan; and what the costs associated with each of those categories are to date.

Mark Francois: All armoured fighting vehicles deployed to Afghanistan will be returned to the UK. None of these have been destroyed and none are currently due to be sold.
	The information on costs associated with this activity cannot be readily broken out from the wider costs of all equipment and personnel recovery.

Scandinavia

John Spellar: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when Ministers in his last met their counterparts from (a) Norway, (b) Finland and (c) Sweden.

Andrew Murrison: Defence Ministers meet their counterparts regularly at multinational meetings throughout the year. The Secretary of State for Defence most recently met the Defence Ministers of Norway, Finland and Sweden at the Northern Group meeting in Helsinki in December 2013, and I had a bilateral meeting with the Defence Minister of Sweden at the EU Foreign Affairs Council (Defence) meeting in Luxembourg in April 2014.

Energy Companies Obligation

Kelvin Hopkins: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change for what reasons he deleted Question 10 in the current consultation exercise on the reductions in the size of the Energy Company Obligation; and what his policy is on the Obligation and its size after March 2017.

Gregory Barker: As stated on page 6 of the consultation document, the Government has confirmed that ECO is intended to be ambitious and long term, extending through at least until 2022. The precise shape of the obligation beyond 2017 will be consulted on in due course, and is not in scope of the current consultation exercise which focuses on the period through to 2017.
	The original question 10 was unclear, in that it requested views on the proposed ECO target in the obligation period to March 2017, but followed a series of specific questions (now questions 10, 11, 12 and 13 in the amended consultation document) seeking views on targets for each of the ECO sub-obligations in that period. As explained on the DECC website, the question was therefore removed in the interests of clarity and to avoid unnecessary repetition.

Air Pollution

Barry Gardiner: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs whether the Government has adopted a formal position on the EU air package; and if he will make a statement.

Dan Rogerson: The Government welcomes the European Commission’s Clean Air Package which was published on 18 December last year. The Commission has recently published several reports updating its impact assessment for the package, and we are in the process of analysing the proposals. The Government is committed to working with the Commission, the European Parliament and other member states to ensure the package is proportionate, deliverable and achievable.

Bovine Tuberculosis

Huw Irranca-Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs pursuant to his statement of 3 April 2014, Official Report, columns 1034-7, on bovine TB, what the evidential basis is for the statement that about a third of badgers in TB hotspot areas are infected with TB.

George Eustice: The prevalence of M. bovis in badgers based on post-mortems and a subsequent analysis of the post-mortem protocol following the Randomised Badger Culling Trail (RBCT) showed prevalence of around 33%.
	In the long-running study of badgers at Woodchester park TB prevalence in badgers has increased to over 30%.1
	In a separate study in Gloucestershire between 35% and 53% of badgers tested positive to a TB test.2
	1 Delahay et al. Epidemiol. Infect. (2013), 141, 1445-1456. Long-term temporal trends and estimated transmission rates for Mycobacterium bovis infection in an undisturbed high-density badger (Meles meles) population
	2 Carter SP, et al. (2012) PLoS ONE 7(12): e49833. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0049833 BCG Vaccination Reduces Risk of Tuberculosis Infection in Vaccinated Badgers and Unvaccinated Badger Cubs.

Cerebral Palsy

Chris Heaton-Harris: To ask the Secretary of State for Health 
	(1)  what steps he is taking to ensure that children under the age of two years old who are diagnosed with cerebral palsy may be assessed for an education, health and care plan;
	(2)  how many children under the age of two years old have been diagnosed with cerebral palsy in the latest period for which figures are available;
	(3)  how many children aged between the ages of two and 18 years old have been diagnosed with cerebral palsy in the latest period for which figures are available;
	(4)  how many people have had a selective dorsal rhizotomy performed in NHS hospitals the latest period for which figures are available;
	(5)  what information his Department holds on how many people have had a selective dorsal rhizotomy in the UK in the latest period for which figures are available;
	(6)  how many people have had a selective dorsal rhizotomy paid for by the NHS in the latest period for which figures are available.

Daniel Poulter: Information concerning the number of Selective Dorsal Rhizotomy (SDR) procedures that have been paid for by the national health service, performed in NHS hospitals or carried in the United Kingdom cannot be provided. In the OPCS Classification of Interventions and Procedures used in the NHS there is no coding for SDR and so this procedure cannot be identified in hospital episode statistics data. In addition to this SDR is not currently routinely funded by the NHS in England following the publication of a single national policy in April 2013.
	Information concerning the number of people diagnosed with cerebral palsy is not collected. However, it is estimated that the condition affects three in 1,000 live births.
	Finally, NHS England's Paediatric Neurosciences (Neurology) service specification clearly defines what NHS England expects to be in place for providers to offer evidence-based, safe and effective services for children with cerebral palsy. It ensures equity of access to a nationally consistent, high quality service for patients.
	This specification sets out that the optimal management of patients with neurological conditions improves health outcomes and can also help to minimise other, often detrimental, impacts on social, educational and employment activity. It also makes clear that the children in the care of paediatric neurology multi-disciplinary teams should have access to non-clinical staff, including: neuromuscular family care officers; hospital teachers; and, play therapists.

Cerebral Palsy

Caroline Dinenage: To ask the Secretary of State for Health 
	(1)  what steps he is taking to clarify the responsibilities of health services in ensuring the early clinical and educational intervention for children under two with cerebral palsy;
	(2)  what steps he is taking to clarify the responsibilities of health services in the identification of cerebral palsy in children under two years.

Daniel Poulter: Diagnosis of cerebral palsy can take time and there is no single test that confirms it or rules it out. In some cases, when a baby requires special care after being born, it may be possible for a confident diagnosis of cerebral palsy to be made relatively quickly. Other cases will be initially identified through routine screening and monitoring.
	We understand from NHS England that babies diagnosed with cerebral palsy have multi-disciplinary team surveillance and an action plan, which includes support with whatever service is needed, including physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech and language therapy in the community, and regular follow up. Ongoing neurological problems are reviewed and referral to other specialists such as paediatric orthopaedic specialists made as necessary.
	Under the Children and Families Act, health bodies identifying a 0-5 year old child with special educational need or disability must discuss this with the parent and bring the child to the attention of the local authority so they can consider whether an education health and care plan is needed. The Department is working with the Department for Education and NHS England to support health commissioners and clinicians to play their part in the special educational need reforms.

Neuromuscular Disorders: Leicester

Liz Kendall: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what progress he has made on providing consultant support in Leicester for people with muscular dystrophy and neuromuscular conditions; and if he will make a statement.

Norman Lamb: NHS England is responsible for commissioning specialised services, including neuromuscular services.
	In July 2013, NHS England published the service specification Neurosciences: Specialised Neurology (Adult). This describes the service to be commissioned by NHS England for patients with a neuromuscular disorder.
	We are advised that NHS England commissions specialist consultant-led neuromuscular services for the East Midlands from Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust.
	The hon. Member may wish to approach the NHS England Leicestershire and Lincolnshire Area Team for further information.

Palliative Care

Adrian Sanders: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment his Department has made of the potential (a) cost and (b) savings to (i) the NHS and (ii) local authorities of supporting more people to die in their preferred place.

Norman Lamb: The Department has made no specific assessment of the potential cost and savings to the NHS and local authorities of supporting people to die in their preferred place.
	However, Public Health England, in its report ‘What we know now 2013’, published in November 2013, detailed a series of studies undertaken by both independent and NHS organisations looking into the costs of deaths in hospitals against deaths in usual place of residence. The report is available at:
	www.endoflifecare-intelligence.org.uk/resources/publications/what_we_know_now_2013
	The Government is committed to extending patient choice in end of life care, and a review will be looking into this issue this year.

Crime

Andrew Rosindell: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps her Department is taking to ensure police officers record all crimes they deal with.

Damian Green: It is vital that recorded crime statistics are as robust as they can possibly be, and the Government has a strong record on reinforcing their independence and accountability.
	The Home Office transferred responsibility for publishing them to the Independent Office for National Statistics and have made more crime data available to the public on street-level crime maps. The Secretary of State for the Home Department, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), has also written to chief constables emphasising that the police must ensure that crimes are recorded accurately and honestly. Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary is inspecting the quality of crime recording in every force in England and Wales, and will report back later this year. We look forward to the interim report this month.

Domestic Violence

Robert Buckland: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether there are any plans to create a legal framework which criminalises patterns of coercive control.

Norman Baker: Domestic abuse is a crime and we already have a framework which covers coercive control.
	There is a range of existing offences for which a perpetrator of domestic violence can be prosecuted, including common assault.
	Coercive control can amount to common assault where the perpetrator, via their words or actions, intentionally or recklessly causes another to fear unlawful or immediate violence. In sentencing, the courts can also take into account as aggravating factors a range of features which are common in domestic violence cases, such as the vulnerability of the victim, the repeated nature of the assaults and abuse of power by the perpetrator.
	Last September, the Home Secretary commissioned Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary to conduct a review of the response to domestic abuse across all police forces. The Inspectorate published its findings in March 2014. It emphasises that the key priority is a culture change in the police so that domestic violence and abuse is treated as the crime that it is and the police use the full range of tools already available to them.
	The Home Secretary will chair a national oversight group to oversee delivery against each of HMIC’s recommendations on which I will also sit.

Police: Bureaucracy

Jake Berry: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps her Department has taken in the last 12 months to reduce the burden of administration for the police.

Damian Green: This Government has acted so that the police focus on fighting crime and not processing paperwork. Our work which has already taken place to reduce bureaucracy could see up to 4.5 million hours of police time saved across all forces every year-the equivalent of over 2,100 officers back on the beat.
	In the last 12 months we have established the Police Innovation Fund to support innovative delivery approaches to policing and free up officer time to fight crime. We have extended the use of police-led prosecutions, reducing bureaucracy for officers dealing with high-volume offences. We have also introduced an improved approach to dealing with Missing People so resources are deployed more intelligently.
	We are producing digital case files to improve file build and reduce paperwork and we are supporting all forces to develop digital solutions so officers can submit information via mobile devices and not have to return to the station to fill in forms.

Deportation

Philip Hollobone: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice pursuant to the answer of 31 March 2014, Official Report, columns 532-3W, on prisoners: foreign nationals, what the main features of the Early Removal Scheme are; how many foreign national offenders were deported under this scheme in each of the last five years; and what the main features are of the Tariff Expired Removal Scheme.

Jeremy Wright: Under the Early Removal scheme (ERS), Foreign National Offenders (FNOs) who are going to be deported or removed by Immigration Enforcement can be removed from prison and the UK up to a maximum of 270 days before their normal release date. This enables their removal earlier than would otherwise be possible, but only after a minimum of half the requisite custodial period has been served in prison in the UK.
	The Tariff Expired Removal scheme (TERS) enables FNOs with life or indeterminate sentences to be removed from the UK using a deportation order once they have completed their minimum tariff period set by the sentencing court. Since its introduction in May 2012, 240 prisoners have been removed under this mechanism (as of April 17 2014).
	Those removed subject to a deportation order cannot legally return to the UK. If they do come back in breach of their deportation order this is a criminal offence. They would also be liable to immediate arrest and return to prison to complete the outstanding part of the sentence they would have served had they not been removed early.
	The numbers removed under ERS in each of the last four years are:
	
		
			  ERS removals 
			 2010 1741 
			 2011 1672 
			 2012 1974 
		
	
	
		
			 2013 1968 
		
	
	We are unable to provide data for the 2009 period. Since 2010 the Home Office have used one system to report on their data. This was not in place in 2009 therefore figures arising from this period may be inconsistent.

Prisoners: Nigeria

Sadiq Khan: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how much the UK Government has agreed to provide the government of Nigeria in financial support as part of the prisoner transfer agreement with the country signed on 9 January 2014; and what the benefits for the UK are of that agreement.

Jeremy Wright: We are currently in discussion about supporting further projects that will assist Nigeria to improve their prisons and build the capacity they need to receive prisoners from the UK under the compulsory prisoner transfer agreement we signed in January this year. To date the cross-Government Migration Fund has funded refurbishment works at Kiri Kiri women’s prison in Lagos, and supported a project aimed at increasing access to justice for remand prisoners to tackle the issue of congestion within the Nigerian prison estate.
	The prisoner transfer process is just one mechanism for removing foreign national offenders (FNOs). All FNOs sentenced to custody are referred to the Home Office to be considered for deportation at the earliest possible opportunity. The number of FNOs deported under the Early Removal Scheme (ERS) has increased under this Government with nearly 2,000 FNOs removed in 2013. Under the Tariff Expired Removal Scheme (TERS) which we introduced in May 2012, we have removed 243 FNOs (at 23 April 2014).
	Whereas this Government has begun to reduce the foreign national population in prison since 2010, between 1997 and 2010, the number of foreign nationals in our prisons more than doubled.

Transport: Windsor

Adam Afriyie: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what recent steps he has taken to improve transport connections between Windsor and London.

Stephen Hammond: The programme to increase passenger capacity on the Windsor to Waterloo railway by 25% is now under way and will be completed in early 2015. 60 additional carriages are being incorporated into an extended and refurbished fleet of trains to operate as a maximum 10 carriage train length. The first additional vehicles are now in service. From May 2014, platform 20 of the former Waterloo International station will be brought into use for scheduled services. Construction of Crossrail is now half completed and electrification of the Great Western Main Line is also under way; the Slough to Windsor and Eton Central line will be electrified by 2019. The Highways Agency is welcoming preliminary comments on the M4 Smart Motorway scheme between Junction 3 (Hayes) and Junction 12 (Theale) until the end of April 2014, and will conduct a formal public consultation on the scheme in the autumn. Subject to development consent and the final business case, construction could start in spring 2016.

West Coast Railway Line

Stephen O'Brien: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what calculations he has used to estimate actual take-up by freight of any spare capacity releases on existing West Coast Mainline tracks if High Speed 2 Phase 2 is realised, including the costs of double and triple handling of goods, products and containers from point of production to point of sale.

Robert Goodwill: HS2 has the potential to increase the amount of freight that can be carried by rail between London and the West Midlands by using the existing mainline capacity that it releases. HS2 Ltd’s assessment concludes that an extra 20 West Coast Main Line freight paths could be released. The Department has not conducted any analysis of potential take-up of these freight paths released by HS2, and such take-up would be a commercial matter for rail freight operators.

West Coast Railway Line

Stephen O'Brien: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport pursuant to the answer of 6 March 2014, Official Report, column 940W, on railways: passengers, and to paragraph 4 of Annex 2 to the Tenth Report of the Transport Committee of Session 2010-12, High Speed Rail, HC 1185-i, what assessment he has made of whether an 80 per cent increase in seats on the West Coast Main Line by 2016 should create enough extra seats to deal with projected increase in passenger growth outlined in the answer.

Robert Goodwill: The Department for Transport asked Network Rail to carry out an assessment of the 51M and RP2 proposals referred to in paragraph 4 of Annex 2 to the Tenth Report of the Transport Committee of Session2010-12, High Speed Rail, HC 1185-i. This assessment is available at:
	http://assets.dft.gov.uk/publications/hs2-review-of-strategic-alternatives/hs2-review-of-strategic-alternatives.pdf
	Network Rail’s assessment suggests that the additional capacity proposed by both 51M and RP2 would not match the demand growth on the route and would not solve the overcrowding on suburban services at the southern end of the route in the peak.

Saving

Steven Baker: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assessment he has made of the effect of sustained low interest rates on incentives to save; and if he will make a statement.

Danny Alexander: Low interest rates have benefited everyone, including through reducing mortgage rates, but the Government recognises that this has made it harder for people’s savings to grow and to secure an adequate income for retirement. The Government believes it is right, therefore, to support hard working people that have taken the long term decisions to save and plan for their future.
	The Budget package announced last month aims to help all savers at all stages of life. It reduces tax for the lowest income savers; reforms the ISA regime to give all savers greater flexibility as to where and how they save their money; and creates new products to help retired savers see a better return.

Pensioners on Low Incomes

Tim Loughton: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what fiscal steps he is taking to help pensioners on low incomes.

David Gauke: Supporting pensioners is a key priority for this Government. Due to the triple lock, the full basic state pension has increased this month to £113.10 a week-a cash rise of £2.95. This is around £8.50 a week higher than it would have been if it had been uprated only in line with average weekly earnings growth since the start of this Parliament.
	We have also passed through the cash rise, due to the triple lock, to the minimum guarantee in pension credit. This ensures that the poorest pensioners also benefit.
	This Government also continues to protect universal pensioner benefits, such as winter fuel payments, free eye tests and prescriptions.

Business Premises Renovation Allowance

David Mowat: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what plans he has to reform the business premises renovation allowance following HM Revenue and Customs' recent consultation.

David Gauke: The Government has introduced legislation in Finance Bill 2014 to clarify the scope of Business Premises Renovation Allowance. The aim is to address exploitation of the allowance, while preserving it as an investment incentive and ensuring continued value for money for tax payers.

Credit: Interest Rates

Austin Mitchell: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer 
	(1)  if he will bring forward proposals to limit the interest rate payable on payday loans; and if he will make a statement;
	(2)  if he will bring forward legislative proposals to make personal debt charged at an APR of over 30 per cent unrecoverable; and if he will make a statement.

Andrea Leadsom: The Government legislated in the Banking Reform Act 2013 to require the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to introduce a cap on the cost of high-cost short-term credit, including payday loans, in order to protect consumers from excessive costs. In designing the cap, the FCA will take into account the interest rate and other fees and charges which may be incurred in relation to a high-cost loan.
	As part of the FCA’s powers to cap the cost of credit in the Financial Services Act 2012, the Government gave the FCA specific powers to prevent a lender enforcing a credit agreement and recovering the debt, if the agreement contravenes its rules on the cost of credit. It can also require that any money or property transferred under the credit agreement must be returned.
	The FCA is currently conducting analysis to inform the design of the cap; it has committed to publishing its proposed rules which implement the cap in July. The FCA plans to publish final rules in the autumn and all lenders must be compliant with the cap by 2 January 2015. The Government supports the FCA’s proposed timetable for implementing the cap: it allows the FCA appropriate time to conduct analysis, consult on its proposals and ensure that firms are fully compliant by January. It also allows the FCA to draw on the insight of the Competition and Markets Authority’s study into payday lenders in designing the cap.